‘It was like a microwave’: Austin Butler talks about filming Dune 2

The actor believes that the difficulty of the filming conditions really unites the film teams: “We feel humbled”

The filming gave the film team a real boost Dune: Part Two. During the shooting period (November/December 2022), heat peaks occurred in Abu Dhabi, where Denis Villeneuve had set up his cameras.

The new antagonist of this sequel, Austin Butler, revealed the difficult conditions of its first week. Already hospitalized after filming of Elvis of Baz Luhrmannhe could have been again at the end of this unprecedented battle – not against the Atreides, but against the suffocating heat of the desert.

Austin Butler plays the terrifying Feyd-Rautha, the cruel nephew and heir of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård), head of the rival house. Even if his character is free of hair, Austin Butler declared to Entertainment Weekly that the heat was stifling:

“It was 43 degrees, so hot. In addition I had the prosthesis to put on my head to give the illusion of a bald head. We were recording sound in gray boxes, which quickly became microwaves. It really unites the whole team. You feel humbled when you work in such an uncomfortable environment.“

The first scene shot for Austin Butler was the decisive gladiator fight for his uncle’s coveted inheritance. During the preparation, the actor assured to pay special attention to the vocal performance of Stellan Skarsgård during the first part of the desert saga. According to him, his voice is the key to bringing his version of Feyd-Rautha to life.

“I had the impression that because he grew up with the Baron, the Baron would have a great influence on him in many ways, he explains to Entertainment Weekly, So, I started to think about his way of speaking. I’ve thought about being linked to a super-powered person since childhood. Inevitably, you end up imitating him in some way.“

A large part of the actors in Dune endured the scorching temperatures of filming the space epic, which is one of the reasons why Denis Villeneuve was grateful that he didn’t go the usual Hollywood route and filmed both films Dune following without interruption of production.

“Both films were made in very difficult conditions, and it’s very physically demanding, so it was a blessing to have a break in betweensaid the filmmaker, My first idea was to shoot the two films together, but now I think I would be dead. It was really intense, and seeing how the audience reacted to the first film was a boost of positive energy to return to the wilderness.”

Surprise, Anya Taylor-Joy is part of the cast of Dune 2!